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A Unique All-Faith Holiday Show Presented by the Indie Collaborative Filled The Bruno Walter Auditorium Stage This Month

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 22 December 2021 20:14; Written by Brad Balfour

Syreeta Thompson

All Faiths Holiday Show
New York City
December 8, 2021
Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center
111 Amsterdam Avenue (between 64th-65th St.)
New York, New York 10023
Produced by Eileen Sherman and Grant Maloy Smith 
Emcee: Grant Maloy Smith

When the Indie Collaborative held its all-faiths holiday show at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, I fulfilled my desire to attend a seasonal live show before the year’s end. On Dec. 8, 2021, from 7-8:30 pm, the show featured more than 20 award-winning Indie Collaborative artists presenting their music. Meant for all ages and faiths, it celebrated the diversity of our seasonal celebrations. Produced by co-founders Eileen Sherman and Grant Maloy Smith — with Smith emceeing — the eclectic cast included jazz trumpeters, former Stomp performers, stars of stage and a lively ukulele aficionado.

Founded in 2015, The Indie Collaborative has become a vehicle for independent musicians and industry professionals (actors, poets, writers, dancers, make-up artists, producers, photographers) to connect with others in the creative arts. It puts on several kinds of events, from showcases to curated shows produced with members. There are chapter meetings and social events for its membership which includes over 2,000 collaborators from around the globe. Membership is free. There are only two requirements — be an industry professional and be dedicated to excellence in the arts.

The jazz community had a significant presence at this all-ages interfaith musical salute to Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas and the New Year. Jazz musicians Alex Otey, Nicole Zuraitis, Syreeta Thompson, Lucy Kalantari, Charu Suri, and The Levels were all part of a great cast of performers on the Bruno Walter stage.

Women musicians were a large part of the show as well. Jazz bandleader, recording artist Zuraitis is the premiere vocalist of the world-famous Birdland Big Band and for Dan Pugach Nonet, who were Grammy-nominated for their arrangement of Dolly Parton's “Jolene." She assembled an all-star female ensemble to record her project “Generations of Her: Women Songwriters and Lyricists of the Last 100 Years” while working on her sixth album as a leader.

Trumpet Lady Thompson is a Billboard Number 1 Album Topper with an upcoming documentary, “Blow Yo Horn”. She kicked off the event by displaying a vigorous demonstration of her instrumental mastery. Uke master Kalantari is a two-time Grammy Award Winner in Children’s music category with a new album, “What Kind of World” coming out with her group The Jazz Cats. Her rousing performance was full of energy and engaged the audience with an energetic sing-along.

In addition, multi-award-winning classical pianist and world music artist, Charu Sur performed a challenging composition combining jazz with ragas from her native India.

Also on stage were popular New York cabaret and soap opera actress Grace Garland as well as award-winning classical flutist and symphonic performer Joanne Lazzaro, Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize winner. Then add featured Broadway violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Drama Desk Winner and one of “Broadway’s Best” Rachel York and IDEA Legacy Lifetime Achievement Award winning performer and producer Yocontalie and you have an amazing set.

Internationally acclaimed hip-hop, R&B, jazz, Latin, and Afrobeat group Levels combine two cast members of Stomp, an American Idol finalist, and two Italian music virtuosos to yield one energetic and stimulating performance. Then there was Billboard Top 10 American Roots recording artist Smith who brought in an emotional and touching rendition of two songs including “On This Day” and ““Christmas Eve in Times Square USA”.

The show’s grand finale brought everyone together as the entire cast on-stage performed a Smith classic “We’ll Stay Together” with lyrics in the program for audience sing-along. All told, the concert displayed an amazing array of talents and good work from Indie Collaborative members. What a way to close out a complicated year.

December '21 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 21 December 2021 22:59; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

The Velvet Queen

(Oscilloscope)

A film that begs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, directors Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier’s exploration of the Tibetan steppes—a bleak, imposing area teeming with dozens of photogenic creatures, including (if you is able to see one) the elusive snow leopard—is crammed with breathtaking images as well as existential insights by Munier and his partner, travel writer Sylvain Tesson, about stillness in a world of constant movement.

The stunning photography—particularly of the moments in a heavy snowfall where one can make out, gradually and just barely, the outlines of a few reclining animals—makes this a singular, memorable journey into one of earth’s remotest regions.

Joy Womack—The White Swan

(Film Movement)

In this impassioned study of a young American ballet dancer, the first non-Russian to graduate from the Bolshoi’s training program, directors Dina Burlis and Sergey Gavrilov get up close and personal with an artist following her own path despite the skepticism of some of those in charge that she’ll be able to dance “like a Russian.”

Womack’s story doesn’t unfold she hopes and expects—her marriage to a Russian dancer, partly one of convenience, ends, as does her association with the Bolshoi—but Burlis and Gavrilov’s intimate documentary still shows Womack in the midst of a burgeoning career.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Ivanhoe

(Warner Archive)

Nearly everything is in place in this 1952 adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s classic—the lustrous photography, the colorful sets and costumes, the rousing Miklós Rózsa score, and stars Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine—except for the script, which drags down the epic proceedings with insipid dialogue and meandering plotting.

Still, director Richard Thorpe and cinematographer Freddie Young make it all look ravishing—particularly in Warner Archive’s sparkling hi-def transfer—and the Taylors and Fontaine make it all credible and entertaining. The lone extra is an archival Tom and Jerry cartoon, The Two Mousketeers.

Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection

(Film Detective)

This boxed set comprises a quartet of Sherlock Holmes mysteries from the 1930s—Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour (1931), A Study in Scarlet (1933), The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) and Silver Blaze (1937)—none of which are particularly enticing but for fans of the famed detective should be diverting enough.

Although the four B&W films are newly restored, they are all showing their age; the extras are a nice mix: commentaries on all the films, restored Sherlock Holmes shorts, vintage cartoons and small cards of the original movie posters.

December '21 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 15 December 2021 22:49; Written by Kevin Filipski

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

The Red Shoes

(Criterion Collection)

British directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger—who teamed on many memorable movies in the 1940s, from I Know Where I'm Going and A Matter of Life and Death to The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp—reached their peak with this gloriously tragic 1948 portrait of art and love…and one of the most ravishing color films ever made, thanks to the incomparable Jack Cardiff's cinematography. Criterion's new UHD upgrade comes from the 2009 restoration, which might give one pause: but the results are so spectacular that you may find yourself freeze-framing constantly while watching the film to savor the results.

Extras include a commentary; restoration demo with Martin Scorsese; the 2000 documentary, A Profile of ‘The Red Shoes’; an interview with Powell's widow, Thelma Schoonmaker; an audio recording of Jeremy Irons reading excerpts from the creators’ own novelization; and the featurette The ‘Red Shoes’ Sketches.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Damnation

(Arbelos Films)

Béla Tarr made several interesting pictures about Hungarian life under the Communist regime in the 1980s, but after discovering Profundity with his exasperating seven-hour Satantango, he became the Hungarian David Lean (whose best films were also the earlier, shorter ones).

Case in point: this glacially paced but magnificently photographed 1988 film about a depressive, in love with a married singer, whose machinations get her husband out of the way. Gábor Medvigy’s B&W photography—his first of three collaborations with Tarr—shimmers on Blu-ray; extras comprise new interviews with Tarr, composer Mihály Víg, and lead actor Miklós Székely B.

Angels with Dirty Faces

(Warner Archive)

One of the pivotal crime dramas of 1930s Hollywood, Michael Curtiz’ good guy-bad guy study of lifelong friends—Rocky Sullivan, who becomes a crime boss, and Jerry Connolly, who becomes a priest—pivots on a group of boys (played by the Dead End Kids) that might either become delinquent or law-abiding. James Cagney (Rocky) and Pat O’Brien (Father Connolly) give powerhouse portrayals; Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart are nearly as good in support.

The gritty B&W images look splendid on Blu; extras are Warner Night at the Movies 1938, hosted by Leonard Maltin, with a newsreel, music short and cartoon; featurette Whaddya Say? Whaddya Say?; radio version with Cagney and O’Brien; and a commentary by film historian Dana Polan.

Broadcast Signal Intrusion

(Dark Sky Films)

Writers Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodalland along with director Jacob Gentry’s intriguing idea—their protagonist finds hidden messages in the mysterious broadcast signals he discovers while working on videotapes, circa 1999—stays afloat for over an hour but it begins to unravel in its final third.

Gentry has learned the lessons well of paranoiac ’70s dramas from The Conversation to All the President’s Men, his own visual palette effectively if derivatively aping those washed-out visual palettes. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; lone extra is a commentary by Gentry and lead actor Harry Shum Jr.

Cry Macho

(Warner Bros)

Now a frail 91, Clint Eastwood keeps regularly churning out movies, but for every modest but effective entertainment like The Mule, there are less proficient items like The 15:17 to Paris, Richard Jewell and now Cry Macho, which stretches its barebones plot—a craggy old man does a favor for a longtime friend and goes to Mexico to retrieve the friend’s young son, encountering a few bumps in the road—as thinly as possible over 100 minutes.

Eastwood still has a nice laidback charm, but the rest of his movie is painfully amateurish. The film looks excellent on Blu; extras are two making-of featurettes.

Rick and Morty—Complete 5th Season

(Warner Bros)

This animated series about a mad scientist and his grandson seems to have reached a new level of insanity during the pandemic, as its creators cram even more visual imagination and verbal zaniness into the mix than usual, which threatens viewers with overload. But the crude humor and eye-popping animation make granddad Rick and grandson Morty’s journeys to alternate realities an entertaining 10-episode trip.

The entire season looks colorfully dazzling on Blu-ray; extras include Fighting Gravity, a making-of feature; 10 Inside the Episode featurettes; and creator/crew interviews.

CD Release of the Week

In the Bleak Midwinter—Christmas Carols from King’s

(King’s College, Cambridge)

This lovely recording from the 2020 Christmas Eve service at King’s College in Cambridge, England, includes 19 holiday carols sung by the renowned Choir of King’s College, which celebrates the famous Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols each Christmas season, and was founded in 1441 by King Henry VI.

In addition to gorgeous renditions of familiar classics “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” there are also more specifically English carols—the ravishing “Sussex Carol,” arranged by Vaughan Williams, and two versions of the glorious “In the Bleak Midwinter”—all beautifully sung, of course.

Broadway Play Review—“Clyde’s” by Lynn Nottage

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 13 December 2021 00:49; Written by Kevin Filipski

Clyde’s

Written by Lynn Nottage

Directed by Kate Whoriskey

Performances through January 16, 2022

Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, NYC

2st.com

Uzo Aduba and Ron Cephas Jones in Lynn Nottage's Clyde's

Lynn Nottage’s plays demonstrate not only sympathy for her characters but also an ability to write about those usually not given a stage, so to speak, to address their hopes, dreams, aspirations and grievances. Her last play, the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner Sweat, was an unflinching look at residents of Reading, Pennsylvania, where poverty was off the charts—unsurprisingly, Nottage never patronized nor condescended to these people.

The same obtains in her new play, Clyde’s, as Nottage again paints complicated portraits of characters usually ignored by most of us in our everyday lives. The setting is a run-down greasy spoon again in rural Pennsylvania, where Clyde, the imposing owner who never suffers fools, hires ex-convicts to work in her kitchen to make sandwiches for her trucker clientele wanting quick, cheap, tasty food.

Clyde (a fierce, funny Uzo Aduba) is relentless in keeping her employees on their toes and making what her revolving door of customers wants, even if they think it’ll ruin their carefully crafted creations. There’s energetic Letitia, who has a youngster at home and an untrustworthy ex; boisterous Rafael, who’s trying to stay off drugs and who has an (mostly) unrequited crush on Letitia; the new guy with the racist face tattoos, Jason, recently out of prison; and Montrellous, the veteran the others look up to, who keeps their spirits up by describing the perfect sandwiches he would make if he could.

Clyde’s often moves like a superior sitcom, with fast-talking, ever-quipping diner employees (the perfectly greasy set by Takeshi Kata gets an illuminating assist from Chirstopher Akerlund’s lighting). But in this seemingly thin setup, Nottage and ace director Kate Whoriskey provide a wealth of, observation, insight and drama that’s leavened by dollops of humor.

Everyone is individualized sufficiently, and the rest of the cast comes to the fore, led by Ron Cephas Jones as a marvelous Montrellous, a beguiling mixture of zen-master and elder statesman. Scarcely behind him are the robust performances by Kara Young (Letitia), Reza Salazar (Rafael) and Edmund Donovan (Jason), making Clyde’s a place—and a play—worth visiting.

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